Just to let you know that the next chat with the Community Economic Development team will be here in this thread on Tuesday 3 November at 12.30pm and will be focused on the Community Economic Development Programme – catch-up with the team and preparing for CED plans.

Just a reminder that you’ll need to be registered to join in the chat so make sure you sign up beforehand so you can get involved!

Hi Sarah – this is Desna from LESS (in Lancaster) – I’m picking this piece of work up from a colleague who isn’t working at our organisation any longer, so I may have some questions that seem a bit simplistic 😉 I guess my first question is can I have some clarity re timescales for the current part of the work (technical support) – i.e. when do you want to see what from us?

I like the structure of the CED program, I think it allows us to be quite ambitious with our plans, although I am worried about short timescales and lack of resources to put an ambitious plan together that involves a wide range of partners funders and initiatives. Any thoughts on how to meet the requirements of the program without diminishing what could be a very ambitious community led regeneration plan for a specific area?

Welcome aboard and all questions are good! The delivery of the technical support is very much bespoke to each group so the timings will depend on how you are managing the programme locally. Ultimately, it all needs to be delivered by February next year – but the more that is delivered sooner, the more it will help to inform the outline CED plan. The deadline for outline plans is 18th December.

Yes – there is some guidance on what should be in the plan – uploaded to this post (hopefully). Your adviser also has this and can talk you through it in more detail. There is no set format or structure – just important that all 6 areas mentioned are covered off. For the outline plan the focus should be on the context, outcomes and engagement, with the more detailed information on resources, timetabling and activities to follow in the final plan.

Attachments:

Hi Peter – sorry – should have added that the outline plans are due 18th December as I mentioned above, and the final plans by 11th March.

These timeframes are tight – but the outline plan is really just that, an outline at this stage – we just want to see the ideas and activities you have been working on collected into one place at this stage.